A lot has changed for me since I last checked in. I remember writing my last blog posts in the wee hours of the morning in the living room of that sacred place across from Trinity Bellwoods park that came to be known as Vidal House (called that in part to mask it’s actual location on Gore Vale Ave – a necessary precaution that can’t be taken too lightly in the internet age – and in part, to honour Gore Vidal, because, well, he was a badass.) It seems so far removed that I have trouble recalling the despair I felt when my bedroom flooded, months later. Or the incredulity I felt towards the bold mouse who once visited me as I wrote, unafraid. Or the basement cockroach incidents. But everything in that house, good or bad, felt like a badge of honour that would now read “I was an early-twenties, ungentrified Toronto urbanite and I LIVED.” I had the time of my life. In the last few years (oh lord, YEARS) my life has metamorphosed into full-blown theoretical adulthood. Vidal House saw some lineup changes and then faded into just a blissful memory (miss you boys!) For almost the last year and a half I’ve been spending long stretches living, both literally and figuratively, at my boyfriend’s house.

Somewhere along the way, however, I finally got a room of my own. Technically, an apartment, but a bachelor really is just a room. And it’s all mine. Although the money part is always precarious and somewhat questionable (student loans and a predilection for clothing will ruin you at any age), I can presumptively say I’m living the Virginian dream.

So what do I mean to say with all this? I guess the point of all this proselytising is to, one, apologize for being absent all this time and, two, to tell myself, now you really have no excuses.